Coffee and Oblivion, Four Weeks Later
by blacktop
Summary: At the edge of nothingness, where all he can see is her eyes, the tug of a comradely insight can mean everything. Spoilers for S2, E13 "Dead Reckoning." This extended drabble was based on a prompt by PiscesChikk who wondered what Fusco and Reese might say to each other on a coffee break after the traumatic events of Prisoners Dilemma and Dead Reckoning.


Fusco sprang for the high priced brew because it was three in the morning. Because they had been on this drenched stake-out for six hours. Because their target was humping his second call girl of the evening.

And because Reese hadn't said a word in over ninety minutes.

When he got back to the car, Fusco spoke in his best back-slapping tone:

"In my next life, I'm coming back as a Starbucks franchise owner. Those guys hafta be making money hand over fist in there."

Fusco spat out the words with some force as he squeezed behind the wheel, but he chuckled to siphon off the bitterness, hoping to prompt a comment from his taciturn friend.

Reese turned his shoulders, extending his left hand to accept the scorched offering. He looked through the steam curling from the paper cup. Fusco thought he saw a word forming on the thin lips.

But the gesture turned into a sigh that sent the cottony air swirling toward the dashboard.

"… 'In my next life'…" Reese paused, rolling the phrase over his tongue. "This _is_ my fucking next life, Fusco."

A month had gone by. They hadn't talked about the bomb vest, the harrowing encounter with Carter in the hallway, the close escape from death on that roof top.

Fusco didn't know what to say then. Or what to do now. So he just kept quiet and let the other man have his space.

To his surprise, Reese took the silence as an opening.

"Sometimes when I can't sleep, when I'm just lying there counting cracks in the ceiling, I see her face, her eyes.

"Most of all her eyes."

Reese lowered his head to stare directly into the murky blackness of the coffee before him.

"Damn me to Hell, but she really believed it, didn't she? In that moment, she really thought she could get me out of that vest, didn't she?"

He shook his head in wonder; the slight movement caused the liquid to slosh dangerously near the lip of the cup.

Fusco made sure that his voice, though low, was not casual; he wanted Reese to hear this plain and clear.

"I don't know what she was thinking, to tell ya the truth. It was all so fast, so crazy up there."

Fusco was a pretty good read of people, but he usually hesitated to share his insights because they often got him or somebody else into a world of trouble.

This time he decided to make an exception to his rule and damn the consequences. Carter was his partner, sure, but so was this suffering man beside him.

"But I know what I could feel. When I took her arm, she was trembling; shaking all over and her knees were springy-like, wobbling something awful. Her body was all contracted and stiff, like there was a tight band wrapped around her or something.

"Like she was wearing the fucking vest herself, ya know."

Reese inhaled sharply, whether a gasp or a sob Fusco wasn't quite sure.

"She would have, John. She would have stayed right there with you to the end."

A few moments went by and the coffee cooled enough to sip at last.

"Lionel, what you did was tough. I shouldn't have asked you, didn't have the right to, really. But God, I was desperate. I didn't know what else to do."

Fusco hoped Reese was going to admit his truth: in that split second when all three souls were fused together, seared by the fire of that shared image of grotesque death, in that last blazing communion beyond friendship or even love, he had simply lost his mind.

Like any man facing oblivion surely would.

But Reese didn't - wouldn't - admit anything. He remained mute, staring through the rain streaked windshield.

So Fusco broke the chilly silence.

"Hey, pal, that's what partners do for partners."

Then, to lighten the mood:

"I saw it in an old Bogart movie. It's in the partner's code book, chapter one or something."

"Yes."

An unsmiling sip to punctuate the acceptance.

"Thank you for that, Lionel."

The two men looked ahead across the dreary street. Rain drummed over the roof of the car.

Reese lowered the window beside him and slowly dribbled the dregs of the coffee into the gutter. When he had emptied the cup he crumpled it first in his right hand, then in his left.

"For everything, partner. For every damn thing. Thank you."


End file.
